Radius Ensemble: Reverberations

Radius brings the season to a close with two works by locals in a program of cultural and historical Reverberations. First comes a solo piano work entitled fardanceCLOSE, written by Harvard faculty member Chaya Czernowin in 2012 (and revised in 2020), which explores our perception of decibels and distance. Next, the ensemble performs Night Songs (Nachtliederen), a string quintet (2005) by Longy composition department chair Alexandra du Bois in the composer’s own 2007 arrangement for wind quintet. Originally commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Night Songs is inspired by and dedicated to the life of young Dutch Jewish writer and Holocaust victim, Etty Hillesum. The concert concludes with a Romantic bookend to match the Vaughan Williams Quintet of the first concert: the incomparable String Sextet in G Major, Op. 36 (1864-5) by Johannes Brahms.